Amelia and A-Bunny

We named our black bunny A-bunny; a play on the word Ebony and the fact that the animal is a bunny. I know, we are so clever. However, the little girls are going to kill A-bunny. As soon as the older kids are off to school the 2 little ones are out scooping up the bunny from her cage and carting her everywhere, stuffing her in the cargo area of the big wheel, and losing her in the house. Amelia calls her "bundy". how cute is that?

Roma Tomatoes Etc,.

Our Roma tomatoes went wild this year. We planted them around Mother's day, and have been eating them for a while now with bacon and lettuce on homemade bread. Last week we picked all the super red tomatoes, a few annahiem peppers with some large green bell peppers and a few hot peppers (I am not sure the variety). All together it made 15 quarts of tomatoes and green chilies(we use this as a base for Mexican chicken soup). I helped pick the tomatoes but Lara cut and bottled everything while I was at meetings.

ThanksGiving Point Plien Air Event

It snuck up on me again! The annual Thanksgiving Point Plien Air event in the gardens at beautiful Thanksgiving Point in Lehi Utah. The last three years, and this year too, I have painted the Koi and lily pads in the pond,(big pond!) why break tradition? I did two paintings; the first was very average, not even worth showing!

This is the second painting. I think it turned out pretty good. It is a 18x30 inch, oil on linen. It didn't win any awards, and nobody bought it (the best award ever!) but I had many positive comments on it. I titled it "school of orange crush"


I think this year I will paint more in this series.



While I was painting a blue heron was entertaining me. He was eating the small fish that came too close to him in the shallow water. I was watching $20 and $30 fish disappear down his gullet at an alarming rate! He finally picked one out that was too big for him too swallow. In fact he could not fly with it in his bill. I know because I chased him down, he dropped the fish about 20 yards from the water to get away from me! I threw the medium size fish back into the water. That fish will live another day... or at least until he is caught by that same heron.